


when the party's over

by safeandsound13



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Universe, Gen, a villain is a hero/a hero is a villain, fairytale AU, villain!octavia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23118874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safeandsound13/pseuds/safeandsound13
Summary: Bellamy goes into the anomaly to save Octavia. What he finds, is a trail of bodies.{Or: a canonverse take on Hansel & Gretel}
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Octavia Blake
Comments: 16
Kudos: 18
Collections: Chopped Madness





	when the party's over

**Author's Note:**

> qualifying round: bellamy blake + canonverse + fairytale AU + a villain is a hero/a hero is a villain.

_everything_

_i put inside_

_of myself_

_somehow_

_ends up_

_inside_

_of you_

_instead_

_& so_

_you_

_grow_

_& i_

_shrink_

_& don't_

_notice_

\- olivia gatwood

* * *

_i._

When Bellamy goes inside the anomaly, the last place he expects to end up is standing in front of a cell in the Skybox. 

The world spins on it’s axis. In the distance, music plays lowly like a constant stream of echoes. From the tiny circular skylight, the moonlight covers his skin in a pale hue. There’s a flash of brown hair and a familiar mask going around the corner at the end of the hallway that catches his eye, but he’s frozen in place trying to concentrate on getting his breathing to even out. 

Frozen, until a guard knocks into his shoulder with a half-assed mumble of an apology, followed by similar looking men with similarly blurred faces, seemingly all with a singular purpose. Following the masked girl.

His stomach churns as the memories suddenly click in his mind, grip around the railing tightening until his knuckles feel like they might split in half. Perched on the edge of the kitchen table, kicking her feet as he cut her bangs with his mom’s blunt fabric scissors. The dress on her thin frame sewn together with scraps of the clothes he outgrew. The floorboards as they slid back to cover her bright green eyes. Her pruney little pink fingers wrapped tightly around his as he held the entire world in his arms for the first time. _Octavia._

Bellamy’s feet start to move before he even wills them to, like an instinct he can’t suppress, his body on autopilot as he follows the loud drum of guard issued boots down the narrow hallway. 

Somehow, he knows where she’s going. It’s where he finds her. The bay window, looking out at an earth, untouched. Almost same look of wonder on her face as the first time, instead it’s tainted by something darker. 

He opens his mouth to say her name, but instead a faceless guard not far on her other side beats him to it. Speeding up, by some miracle, he reaches her before they do. It’s like he’s transported back in time, his chest tight with terror as his tunnel vision shows him just one thing. Doors closing. His mother, floated. It’s happened before, and none of this might be real, none of this might matter out there in their own world, but he can’t risk it, not again. He can’t let it. 

Dragging her around the nearest corner, Bellamy tugs her inside the first chamber he sees, knocking her back against the door as it falls shut behind them. He holds his breath as a small army of boots pass by their door and fade into the distance. They’re safe. She’s safe. He can breathe.

He softens his hold on her arms, eyes flicking over the pale white indents on her skin from his tight grip. Quickly, his eyes rake the rest of her body, trying to find the stab wound from earlier. It’s gone. 

With a trembling hand, Bellamy reaches up to slide up her mask, offering her a small, relieved smile. He’s found her.

She doesn’t smile back. Instead, her eyes narrow. 

* * *

_ii._

Bellamy blinks, and when he opens his eyes next, he’s blinded by streams of sunlight.

He holds up a hand in front of his face, blocking the bright source until his sight adjusts to his surroundings. He’s inside the dropship. A bird outside chirps, the only sign of life in his near vicinity. The smell of fresh dirt mixed with gunpowder engulfs him.

He adjusts easier this time, catches his breath in seconds, his stomach only swirling nauseatingly for a minute. Wiping his damp palms on his thighs, he takes the first step down the ramp. _First one on the ground loses_. 

Bellamy’s eyes zero in on a tree, simple sketch of a herb stapled to it with a rusty nail. Something about it draws him there, closer. His sight catches on the next drawing, this time of the weathered statue down by TonDC. His feet move there within moments, and for all the unnecessary force he uses to tear it down from the tree, he holds it all too gingerly in his hands. 

He recognizes it vaguely, the pounding headache blooming behind his eyes making it too difficult to concentrate, hold on to the memory. A cold feeling makes his brown eyes flick back up to the screw that held this one into place, now recognizing the rust to be blood. A flash of Clarke’s hand, the red staining her knuckles, and a lump starts to form in his throat. 

The next tree has a mountain man in a hazard suit on it, the one after a map of the forest leading to Floukru, and the one after that finally slides the last piece of the puzzle in place. The sharp jawline, the young virtuous smile, the long dark hair falling down her shoulders. It’s his sister. 

They’re Lincoln’s. Of course.

 _It looks like she beat him to it again_. He follows the paper trail further into the woods, pushing aside branches and sidestepping grounder traps, until he stumbles upon a cave. 

Inhaling sharply through his nose and pushing aside the wary looming feeling roaming deep in his chest, he steps inside. His fingers drag along the rough stone wall, helping him guide himself through the dark. 

A low shimmer in the distance starts to light his way exponentially until he reaches it’s source. A flashlight on it’s last fumes, flickering slowly. There, in the corner. Lincoln, bruised and bloody, hanging limply from two ties tight around his wrists and attached to bolts on either side of the cave. 

The stench of metal hangs in the air as Bellamy rushes over there, starting to unknot the rope around his wrist. He’s only halfway there when he feels her presence behind him, like a sixth sense he never unlearned. 

“No,” she snarls, and the sound startles him. He slowly turns on his heels, finding her standing still in front of the flashlight, the image like an eclipse. Octavia wipes at a dark crimson stain on her cheekbone with the back of her wrist, ends of her hair coated together with something sticky. Small fingers wrapped tight around a loose screw, voice like venom, “Leave him.”

* * *

_iii._

A surge in his centre like he’s knocked out, and when he manages to catch his breath and calm the dizzying supply of blood flow in his head, this time he’s the one chained. He doesn’t know why but fresh fear starts to gnaw on his insides, and his fingers start to shake against his will. 

_Find her_ . His heart seems to scream with each loud, quick thump in his throat. _Find her. Find her_. Find her and get away from here. Where it all went bad. 

Rising to his feet, he finds a metallic taste in his mouth. Lifting his bound hands to his face to wipe at the layer of sweat on his forehead, they come back stained red. The metal digs into his skin harshly as he takes his first stumbling step forward.

The chain isn’t attached to the suffocating walls surrounding him. Instead, it leads outside. Outside of the big, hollow cave he’s in. Into the light. 

Bellamy follows the shackles, metal clinkering with each step, bones feeling like jelly. Follows them until he’s outside, on top of a hill, staring down at a sea of faceless bodies. It looks too much like one of his worst nightmares come to life. The grounder army they -- _he_ took down. Nausea rises up in his throat, and he has to take a few steadying breaths through his nose to keep it down. 

There, in the middle of it all, there she is. On his knees, in front of her, is Pike. Mud stains the dark material of his pants. The cuffs around his hand and feet attached to the path of chain Bellamy was following blindly. Octavia takes the safety off the gun in her hand easily, then presses it to his temple. The sharp wind carries her cold voice over to her brother, rain beating down on his cold skin. “Any last words?”

Time stops. Before Bellamy can even move down the hill, before he can close the distance, before he can try and stop her. Before Bellamy can open his mouth, before he can make a sound, before he can let the terror crawl out of his throat like the way it’s been trying to dig itself up and crack out into the open since he opened his eyes in that cave -- she pulls the trigger. 

After, there’s another body at her feet. One of many. She crouches down, the gun tossed aside into a puddle of rain water mixed with Pike’s blood carelessly. The tone of her voice makes a shiver run down his back. “Too bad. You don’t deserve any.”

* * *

_iv._

He blinks, and his boots are sinking into the sand as he looks out at the valley. In front of him is a stream of blood, leading to the first body, unmoving down by a log. Surrounded by a fog of nameless dread, Bellamy finds himself moving forward, from one body to another body, further into the only green patch on earth. _You are Wonkru, or you are the enemy of Wonkru._ Another grim way to trace down his sister. 

Somehow, he still believes he might be able to get to her on time. That she is still in there, somewhere. If only he can find the magic words to say, or the right thing to do. He can still fix this, fix her. Make it better, _be_ better. 

After countless of carcasses, in the distance, he can make out a single cabin surrounded by dense trees. In front of it, is his sister, staring out at it. Waiting. 

“Finally,” she complains, hint of a joke in her voice. Her forehead is coated in a thick layer of blood, but there’s crinkles of joy around her eyes as she shifts her head to look up at him. “Took you long enough.”

A small seed of hope starts to bloom in his chest, but he squashes it back down. His fists clench at his sides. He wants to say something, but isn’t sure what. “What is all of this about?”

‘They choose wrong.” Octavia nudges her chin towards the cozy-looking cabin, a garden of vegetables on one side, a small stream of water on the other. Life. It seems to symbolize all they ever wanted. A home on this little green patch, somewhere safe, where they could just _live._ “Come on.”

He follows her, only because it’s all he knows how to do. 

Inside, there’s only a table with two chairs. On the other end of it, is Diyoza, limp strands of dirty blonde hair falling in front of her dark eyes. In front of her, a glass of whiskey. She runs a finger over the rim. “I want to make a deal.”

Again, the same kind of urgency that would’ve come over him three weeks ago, when this was still his reality, washes over him. He needs this to work out, regardless of the effect of the consequences on his real world. Earth is gone, but he still needs to do everything he can to save it. “What kind of deal?”

The older woman cocks an eyebrow. “Armistice.” Her finger stills on top of the glass, and Bellamy swallows tightly. She’s not talking to him, who wouldn’t be hard to convince at all. She’s talking to Octavia -- motionless beside him. “We lay down our weapons. Share this valley.”

All roads suddenly feel like they’ve led here -- a do-over that shouldn’t even be possible. For all intents and purposes, earth was shattered weeks ago. Yet, this moment here, it feels like what he’s been waiting for all along. A way to right their wrongs and have a fresh start. A clean slate for the both of them. A world in which he can look at his sister and not see a trail of dead bodies. 

“O, this is our chance,” he pleads gruffly, tilting his head slightly. A beat passes, and he licks his lip, letting his fingers graze the side of her hand, sticky with warm blood. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t freeze up, or pull away. Doesn’t lean into it either. Octavia just cocks her head at his gesture, considering him meticulously with her narrowed gaze. His voice only wavers slightly, when he adds, ¨To do better.”

Another century passes them by in the span of a few seconds, and it’s easy -- almost too easy -- for the tension is his shoulders to drain and that stubborn seed smack middle of his chest to start glowing with warmth again at the sound of her voice. 

“What the hell,” Octavia exclaims with a throw of her hands in the air, dark smirk on her lips as she slides in the chair across from Diyoza. She dips inside the front pocket of her armor, pulling out a square ration. She bites off a corner with her canine, then holds it out across the table, chewing slowly. Almost patronizingly, she presses, “All of me for all of us.”

A tense moment falls over the room as their faith and the ration linger in the air. Instinctively, he knows something feels off. But he, like Diyoza, knows this is a make or break it moment. Octavia is going out on a limb, and if they question her _now_ \-- there’s no telling what she’ll do. 

Diyoza takes the ration, holds it up in the air for a second as hard defiance washes over her face. “Bottoms up.”

She tears off a piece, and it’s only takes a moment after she swallows for her throat to convulse and for her to start sputtering for air. Bellamy makes a move to rush over to her, help, but Octavia holds her arm out, halting him. 

“ _Don’t._ ”

“She’s pregnant,” he grits, shoving her arm aside roughly. 

Her gaze doesn’t leave him as he moves away from her and towards the other woman. He’s over there in seconds, helping Diyoza down from the chair and onto the floor once she gets too weak to hold herself up. 

One hand cradles her belly, and he covers it with his own, eyes stinging with tears. Her lips start to turn a pale blue color as a tear rolls down her cheek. “It’s okay,” he urges, “She’ll be okay.” Soon, all life starts to drain from her eyes with each wheezing breath she struggles to take, blood trailing down her chin. He tries to shush her, tries to still the bottomless panic in her eyes until Diyoza’s fingernails let off his forearm, hand dropping down onto the ground with a loud thud. Bellamy stares up at his sister with dark, glazy eyes. “What did you do?”

“Slay your demons while you’re awake,” Octavia answers, slowly rising from her seat as she comes to a stop in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest. The look on her face unreadable. Another mask. “Isn’t that what you used to tell me?”

“She’s not some monster, Octavia!” He spits back, resentment flooding through his body. “She wanted to put down her weapons.”

His sister barely seems to hear him, lowering herself down in a crouch in front of him and Diyoza’s lifeless body. She reaches out with a steady hand, closing her eyes. Bellamy, frozen in place, watches her as if hovering five feet in the air, no longer a part of his own body. “The valley is ours.” Her fingers trail down Diyoza’s cheek until it’s dragging through the crimson red coating her chin. There’s nothing in her voice that tells him this is his sister, all cold disattachment. He doesn’t dare move. Horror swells inside of him as hot tears slide down his face, he watches as she drags her blood-covered fingers down her own, creating blurry red lines down her skin. “It was never hers to give away.”

What scares him the most is how calm she is, how none of it seems to affect her. He likes to think that despite everything, he never raised her to be _numb_. And if this isn’t the same girl he raised, he doesn’t really know what there is left to say or do. She’s a stranger. 

He disentangles himself from Diyoza, using the table as leverage to rise to his feet. It takes him a second to steady himself, his head swimming with dizziness. “Without Diyoza, those criminals will never accept a ceasefire.” His jaw tightens, watching as her chin juts up indignantly. Molten anger runs through him. “We’ve been here before. The valley will just end up destroyed.”

“No,” she grits defiantly, eyes boring into his as she surges upwards, an all too familiar temper sparking within her. There’s so much anger there, anger he’s afraid he taught her to hold on to. “Last time, you ended up in the pit. This time, I followed your lead.”

His blood runs cold. “What?”

“So you can poison _me_ , your family, but I can’t pull the same trick on a terrorist trying to take our rightful home?” Her nostrils flare with a mirthless scoff. Thunder seems to rumble in the far distance, even if the sky outside was a bright pale blue minutes ago. “Careful, big brother. You’re starting to sound like a hypocrite.”

* * *

_v._

A bright glimmer, a revolting flood surging through his body he barely even reacts to at this point, and then he’s stalking after Octavia in Sanctum woods. Surroundings only illuminated by the open door of the ship long forgotten behind them. Dark green clouds start to form in the dark air, cold enough to burn his lungs.

“What is this all about?” He calls out at her back, thinking out loud. He just wants this never ending chase to stop, getting them nowhere. “Are you still trying to be Blodreina, is that it?” Abruptly, he stops walking, shoulders stiff with fearful realization. Everything falling into place at once. Every little crack in his relationship with his sister. Time after time. Place after place. Is that what she tried to show him? “The guards, you wanted them to catch you.”

Octavia pivots around on her heels suddenly. There’s sickening smile on her face, filled with pride. A dull feeling coils in his stomach as a clap of thunder booms loudly. “Yes,” she agrees, almost enthusiastically like he’s finally understanding her frustration. Then her smile starts to fade, something darker replacing it. “I am no longer the defenseless little girl from under the floor like I was then. i could’ve taken them this time.”

He refuses to believe it, swallowing tightly as he stares at his sister’s face. Safe from the small cut above her brow, she looks untouched. Like this, he can almost pretend. “Lincoln. You love him.”

She sticks her nose in the air. “That’s why.” Her green eyes simmering with unprocessed rage. “If you love nobody, no one can hurt you.”

“Bullshit,” he counters immediately, voice rough. Almost desperate with it, “Love gave me you. I told you before. My life -- it didn’t start until then. Not really.”

Octavia softens, just a little. “We’re not living.” She closes her eyes as the first drop of rain drops down on her cheek. When they spring open, all softness is gone. She flings up a hand. “Look around, Bell. We’re surviving.”

 _Who you are and who you have to be._ He still believes that. He still believes his sister is not this person. That the same person calling him Bell isn’t the same person who is willing to sacrifice everything and anyone to fit her black-and-white vision of the world. He still believes he didn’t raise a monster like this. “And once we have?”

It seems to strike her with surprise, just for a second, then a muscle in her jaw twitches and all warmth is gone from her gaze again. “Then I’ll find my peace.”

“This isn’t the way.” He rakes her face desperately, trying to find anything, some semblance of his sister. Second chances, he believes in those. He’s made the best of those. He wants to give her one, like others gave him when he deserved it the least. Clarke would forgive her. Hope. He still has it, despite everything in front of him telling him not to. “It can’t be. The anomaly.” He’s grasping at straws, and deep down he knows it, but he’s still moving closer to her. Frantic. “It wanted me to find you. The guards, the drawings, the bodies. It wanted me to stop you.”

Octavia huffs, as if offended. “Not the anomaly, big brother. _Me_ .” She takes a step forward, too. Rain now pelts down on them, drenching their clothes, making their hair stick to her foreheads. He wishes it could wash away the blood on their hands. “I still stand by what I said. _Side by side._ ”

Resignation floods him all at once, shocking his system to the core. There’s no satisfying end to this conversation. “Making the same mistakes over and over again?” All this has taught him, the anomaly, going over the past, is that he will never stop trying to reconcile the innocent little girl he raised with the heartless stranger standing in front of him. But that doesn’t mean she still exists.

He thought letting go of the responsibility, of letting go of the guilt he felt over her choices -- he thought it would help him. All it did was put more distance and misunderstandings between them. 

“I tried to show you the way. I tried to show you that I listened to you.” Her fingers weave into the material of his sweater, eyes shining with a twisted kind of melancholy. She remembers it differently, all of it. Cold seeps into his bones, and not from the rain. “If we don’t learn from our history, we’re doomed to repeat it.”

He swats her hands away harshly, disgust seeping into his tone. “What? Killing Pike the way he killed Lincoln? You let vengeance lead you the first time, and you let the exact same thing consume you the second time.”

“You got it all wrong. This time, I stopped him before it got out of hand. Like I should’ve done the first time.” Her forehead puckers as a beat passes. “For my people,” she reminds him, matter-of-factly, like those words still mean anything.

The planet almost shakes with thunder. A sick kind of desolation settles over him, his fingers wrapping around the cold handle of the knife in the holster attached to his thigh. “You think you’re a hero, but all you are is a monster.”

“Everything I know, I learned from you,” Octavia throws right back, eyes dark. Her face hardening and shoulders straightening. Her voice is cold, detached, much more controlled as she continues, “If I’m a monster, then what does that make you? ”

Is this his fault? Did he hold her too close, squeeze her too tightly every time before he slid the floorboards back into place? When he taught those fingers to write her own name -- all neat and sharp lines -- was he the one to also teach her to take lives just like it? When she scraped her knee and he wiped away her tears and told her to be strong, did she mistake showing feelings for weakness? When he threatened all the boys making eyes at her, did he teach her the only way to protect the ones you love was with your fists? Was it the distance, the six years of time and space he put between them? He still loves her. He did then. He does now. Always will. It makes him feel sick. 

It aches, deep in his chest, dull but sharp, old but new. He can try to erase her, but he can’t erase the scar on his lip from when they played lily pads and she accidentally knocked him into the corner of the table. Can never erase how he sees her smile, two front tooth missing, every time he closes his eyes. He can never unhear her laugh, once his favorite sound in the world. She’s so much like him -- even now he can still see that -- hating her feels too much like self-loathing. She’s still part of him. And if she’s part of him, part of him will always be contaminated. 

If he wants to do better, be better -- he has to let that part of himself go. He has to let _her_ go.

 _His sister. His responsibility._ He’s not sure what will be left of him without it. He moves forward all at once, holding her close as he plunges the knife into her stomach. Her fingers dig into his shoulders as a small gasp leaves her lips, muffled by his neck. Can he ever be forgiven for sins he didn’t commit, but create? Finally, vision swimming with tears, he admits, “Nothing good.”

* * *

_\+ i._

Bellamy fades back into reality, entire body covered in a sheen of sweat. Octavia is limp in his arms, blood blooming on her torso like a flower. Quietly, she’s choking on the last bit of air in her lungs.

“What the hell happened?” Gabriel calls out, helping him lower his sister to the floor of his old tent. His hand wipes away a strand of her dark hair while Bellamy can barely get himself to move. Echo is frozen in the corner, eyes wide. Gabriel’s other hand is pressed to her abdomen, but red seeps through his fingers like water. 

Bellamy’s cheeks are wet as he shakes his head, at a loss for words. There’s no reminiscing. Nobody wants to hear about the way she used to crawl into their mother’s lap after another meeting with a guard, and the too-wise-for-her-age way she would try to distract her with stories about mythological creatures, or about the pure, unadulterated excitement in her voice as she told him about _glowing butterflies, Bell_. Not when all they see is the pile of bodies she left in her wake. How she wanted to change the past for worse. They don't know the full story. And they never will. 

All there is left to say is, “I tried to save her but I couldn’t.”

* * *

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> part of this is inspired by sierra demulders 'mrs dahmer', a poem i read for the first time when i was sixteen and has stayed with me ever since. title is taken from billie eillish, which kind of symbolizes that feeling you have after experiencing a loss that you've been putting off and it hasnt been the same for a while. that probably doesn't make sense, just nod and smile. also literally 'when the party's over' kind of symbolizes where it went wrong for the first time between them for me. plus the song is a vibe. 
> 
> anyway: vote me into round 1 pretty please?


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